Simplified Tax System Will Cut Tax Burden for Small Businesses

The government is expected to collect about USD 154 million in tax receipts from small businesses in 2003, almost 50% less than in 2002. As a Rosbalt correspondent reports this was announced by Head of the Russian Small Business Taxation Department Anatoly Melnichenko.

He said that this decrease in tax receipts is due to a simplified taxation system coming into force this year, which dramatically reduces the burden on tax-payers. Mr Melnichenko added that by the beginning of December 2002 about 200 thousand organisations and more than 300 thousand private business people had applied to switch to the simplified taxation system in 2003. Overall the number of organisations wanting to switch to the simplified system rose by 2.8 times year on year while the number of private business people wanting to switch rose by 3.2 times.